Dr. Julie, a.k.a. Scientific Chick, brings you insights into what's happening in the world of life sciences. Straight from the scientific source, relevant information you should know about, in plain language.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

While there are about a million new science articles I should be telling you about, in this post I want to share with you some very exciting news: Scientific Chick is now Professor Scientific Chick!This is very exciting because as long as I can remember I've always wanted to be a prof. Sabbaticals, conferences in exotic locations, armies of students working for you while you "go to meetings" (in Whistler), what's not to love? I've been working towards this for a long time. This is how it happened:My (3) regular readers (hi mom!) already know I have a PhD in Neuroscience, during which I looked at what happens to learning and memory in the aging brain. Living in Canada's most expensive city on a grad student salary and running experiments that never worked was a true test of character. People would tell me "these are the best years of your life" and I would just laugh hysterically and go back to poking brains and attempting every black magic trick in the book to get my stuff to work (spoiler alert: those people were right all along).I then spent an undetermined number of years as a "postdoc". For those of you who may not be familiar with the wonderful world of academia, a "postdoc" (real name: Postdoctoral Fellow) is someone who isn't quite satisfied with getting a PhD and feels they need to "train more" (synonym: masochist). I did my postdoc at the National Core for Neuroethics at UBC, where my research remained in the realm of aging but shifted from obscure animal work to real-life work: I've specialized in studying how the online environment is used to share and learn about brain health in aging.I was really lucky that my postdoc environment allowed me to do all sorts of (fun) things professors get to do: write grants, supervise students, chair conferences, organize science outreach activities for the general public, and more! (but sadly no sabbaticals, though I did go to a few exotic-ish locations for conferences).

After applying for jobs day and night (and also attempting more black magic), I landed an Assistant Professor position at the same National Core for Neuroethics where I did my postdoc, with a second affiliation as Faculty of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, where you'll find me today. I continue my research on online health for dementia. I'm slowly building my army. But mostly, I write stuff.

About Me

Dr. Julie is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the National Core for Neuroethics and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience.